By Mark Bennett
Let's start with the good things the Indiana
State University men's basketball team did Sunday in Hulman Center
against Southwest Missouri State.
The Sycamores guarded the heck out of the
visiting Bears, holding their leading scorer Terrance McGee to
a 1-for-9 shooting performance and holding the SMS starting five
to eight first-half points.
They committed just seven turnovers for the
entire game.
They got SMS's two most threatening frontcourt
players, Scott Brakebill and Mike Wallace, into early foul trouble.
Not a real long list, but enough to get a
Missouri Valley Conference win in quite a few situations. Not
on Sunday, however.
Getting Brakebill and Wallace into foul trouble
didn't help, because sophomore Monwell Randle and freshman Tamarr
Maclin replaced them and kicked the Sycamores' butts, combining
for 15 points and 10 rebounds in the last 13 minutes of the first
half.
And in the second half, even though Randle
and Wallace both eventually fouled out, the carnage under the
boards continued.
The thing I kept thinking about watching the
first half was the hat size of the Bears' 6-foot-7, 235-pound
Slovakian forward Daniel Novak - for my money the second-biggest
head on a basketball player in Hulman Center, trailing only 7-4
Vladimir Tkachenko of the Russian national team that played here
twice in the late 1970s.
The thing I kept thinking about in the second
half was whether or not any of the Bears would get hurt banging
into each other while flying to the defensive glass.
ISU was still within 55-53 with the ball in
the final minute, but by this time its offense had come down
to two things - free throws by Djibril Kante or penetration by
Lamar Grimes. So SMS played Lamar for the drive, deflected his
dish for a turnover and won the game.
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But since they were the only Sycamores who
had really shown up - "Djibril certainly had an outstanding
game [20 points, a game-high 11 rebounds] and Lamar tried to
get some things done [12 points, six assists], but I can't come
up with anybody else who made contributions," Coach Royce
Waltman said - they were the ones who had to face the music in
the postgame press conference.
Djibril, who is apparently going to have to
appeal for some kind of redshirt career or somehow have his heart
transplanted, was the one who got the questions about the rebounding,
and about his duel with Wallace.
"He was in foul trouble the whole night,
so it wasn't much of a matchup," Kante said of Wallace,
who finished with eight points and six rebounds in 20 minutes.
"He got what he came here for [a victory] so he won the
matchup."
Take away team rebounds, which are basically
lucky bounces, and ISU gets outrebounded 39-28. Take away Djibril's
11, and it's 39-17 even with the two best SMS rebounders sitting
more than half the time.
Take away the four layups set up by Lamar's
penetration and ISU is 15 for 53 from the field (.283).
Just when the Sycamores seemed to have things
figured out, beating MVC contender Northern Iowa on the road,
the wheels fall off. Now all they have to do is go to Bradley,
and Peoria is never a destination known for building confidence
in its visitors.
Kelyn Block's return couldn't be coming at
a better time, because a little spark, a little morale boost
is certainly needed right now. Maybe some words from the other
coach would help.
"I think Indiana State has got a good
basketball team," Barry Hinson said after the game. "I
don't want to come back here this year; I don't have to, and
I'm glad about that."
Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. for
comments or news items at 1-800-783-8742, Ext. 277, or at (812)
231-4277; by e-mail at andy.amey@tribstar.com; by mail at P.O.
Box 149, Terre Haute, IN, 47808; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.
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